This invention is related to computer systems used in the medical health industry, and more particularly, to computer systems used to communicate medical insurance claims.
Computer systems have been used for a variety of functions within the medical health industry. For example, computer systems have been used to submit, adjudicate, and process medical insurance claims. Another example is the use of a computer system to provide medical history information to a healthcare provider so the provider can make an informed diagnosis or prognosis.
The medical claim processing systems typically include a plurality of computer stations coupled to a central processing computer. The computer stations are typically located at a healthcare provider""s facility, an insurance carrier, or medical laboratory. The computer stations generate a request for medical information or a medical claim for processing. The central processing computer couples the computer stations together and verifies the communication with the stations, processes the requests for data, and communicates the requested information back to the computer stations.
Several limitations exist for this type of computer system. First, these systems require that the plurality of computer stations communicating with the central processing system communicate in a particular communication protocol and that all of the messages communicated with the central processing system have the same predefined format. The requirement that the computer stations all communicate in the same format with the same protocol does not permit expansion of the system to users that are currently using other programs in their computer stations that format data messages differently or that use communication protocols other than the one used by the central processing system. Modifications must be made to the programs of the new users so they may communicate with the central processing system correctly. What is needed is a medical computer system that can communicate with a plurality of data message formats and communication protocols.
A second limitation of a typical medical transaction system is a requirement that the central processing system validate and process all the data messages received from the computer stations. In order to do so, the central processing system must be able to compare the received data messages against known acceptable data. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,121 to Barber et al., discloses a central processing system that interfaces with a plurality of physician office terminals, financial institutions, and insurance companies. The information required to validate and format the flow of data from a standardized physician""s terminal to the central processing system of this patent is provided in the claims, insured, physician, insurance company, zip code, bad credit card, and insurance check files associated with a variety of databases at the central processing system. The information in these files must be provided by a plurality of insurance carriers and employers that receive electronic claims from the central processing computer. As a consequence, the maintenance and updating of these databases with information from the insurance carriers and employers must be performed at the central processing system. What is needed is a system that does not require a centralized database for validating and formatting an electronic medical claim that must be maintained with insurance carrier data.
Another limitation of systems previously known include the requirement that the central processing system transmit medical claims to insurance carriers and receive remittance data from insurance carriers in the same communication format and protocol used by the computer stations at the insurance carriers. In an effort to standardize both forms of communication, ANSI (American National Standards Institute) has generated an ANSI 837 standard for medical claims and an ANSI 835 for remittance data that specifies the format for a variety of message types that contain the various types of information to be exchanged among the central processing system and the computer stations within a typical computer system used in the healthcare industry. One limitation of the ANSI standards, however, is that a number of data fields in the data messages specified by the standard are optional and may or may not be used by one or more of the insurance carriers that are members of a medical claim processing system. Typically, insurance carriers, sometimes called trading partners, contract with a business partner who runs a central processing system to provide the carrier with the electronic medical claims from the healthcare providers. Although the optional data fields provided in the message formats specified by the ANSI standards support different variations within the standard, the ANSI 837 data message format in previously known systems are set by the business partner so all computer stations communicate with the central processing system in the same data message format. What is needed is a system that can communicate with a plurality of trading partners that supply data messages in different formats and in different communication protocols.
In previously known systems, the insurance carriers may or may not provide remittance information to the central processing system so the central processing system can generate electronic funds transfer messages to financial institutions. Instead, the insurance carriers may generate hard copy checks that are mailed to the financial institutions or may adjudicate the claim and transmit the remittance of the claim to the central processing system which in turn generates electronic funds transfer messages in the same format for the financial institutions. As a consequence, only the insurance carrier has access to all of the remittance data that may be used to generate a database of remittance information regarding the payment of the medical claims by the insurance carrier. Periodically, an insurance carrier may provide the database of remittance information to a third party for statistical analysis to determine data such as the most frequent type of treatment for a particular demographic group or geographical location. Such statistical information is useful to the insurance carrier for identifying growing healthcare costs which may need addressing. Currently, each insurance carrier must generate its own remittance database and the statistical analysis of the database is performed off-line in a non-real time manner. What is needed is a system that can generate a remittance database for all of the claims adjudicated by all of the insurance carriers within a medical computer system and analyze that information.
All previously known medical computer systems are dedicated to a single function such as providing medical healthcare data records such as treatments and diagnosis to healthcare providers or submitting and adjudicating medical healthcare claims. What is needed is a medical transaction computer system that is capable of integrating the functions of obtaining medical data records with the function of medical healthcare claim processing.
The present invention provides a medical transaction system that overcomes the problems noted with the previously known medical computer systems.
The above-identified problems for previously known medical computer systems are solved by a unique medical transaction system that communicates with a plurality of healthcare provider computer stations and a plurality of insurance carrier and financial institution (trading partner) computer stations in a variety of communication protocols and data message formats. One embodiment of the inventive medical transaction system includes a communication receiver capable of communication with the plurality of healthcare provider computer stations using a variety of communication protocols and data message formats, a compiler for compiling information from the data messages transmitted by the healthcare provider computer stations, the compiled information being put in generic records having a format that is independent of the communication protocol and format of the data messages, an extractor for extracting some of the generic records associated with a trading partner computer station identification code, a formatter for formatting message information from the extracted generic records in a format corresponding to the trading partner computer station identification code, and a communications transmitter for transmitting the formatted message information to a trading partner in a communication protocol and data message format recognized by the trading partner.
Such a transaction system is capable of communicating with the healthcare provider, insurance carrier, and financial institution computer stations in any one of a variety of communication protocols and data message formats. For example, doctors and hospitals may submit medical claims to the transaction system without the claims having to be communicated in the same data message format or transmitted in the same communication protocol. Accordingly, there is no need for a healthcare provider station desiring to become a member of the medical transaction system to modify any of its hardware or software to communicate with the medical transaction system of the present invention.
Similarly, the medical transaction system of the present invention may communicate data messages containing claim information to a variety of insurance carriers without the insurance carriers all using the same data message formats and communication protocols. This advantage permits the operator of the medical transaction system to contract with any financial institution or insurance carrier for a format predetermined by a trading partner agreement that meets the needs of one trading partner without impacting communication or data format requirements for another trading partner. Thus, any financial institution or insurance carrier signing a trading partner agreement with the operator of the medical transaction system need not modify the format of its existing data messages or communication protocols.
In the above-identified system, the data files and databases required to adjudicate medical claims are kept at each of the respective insurance companies. Thus, there is no need for a centralized database having specific insurance carrier information at the medical transaction system for processing a medical claim. One advantage of moving this function to the trading partner computer stations is that the medical transaction system can quickly and efficiently verify the data fields within the data messages communicated to it without requiring the extensive information and overhead processing required to adjudicate and process medical claims. Another advantage is that information to maintain a centralized database for validating claims is not required from the insurance carriers.
Another embodiment of the unique medical transaction system of the invention includes the capability of receiving data messages which include adjudicated claim and remittance information from the computer stations at the insurance carriers. The medical transaction system of this embodiment further includes a financial transactor that processes the remittance information to generate electronic funds transfer messages that may be transmitted to the financial institutions to transfer money from an insurance carrier account to a healthcare provider account. The compiler of this embodiment further includes the capability to compile information from the remittance and electronic funds transfer messages and associate the compiled information with the generic records in the database generated from the medical data requests. Thus, the medical transaction system can generate a database from the medical transaction requests, the remittance messages, and the electronic funds transfer messages. This database may be statistically analyzed off-line or in a real time manner.
Another embodiment of the medical transaction system includes the capability of healthcare providers to communicate with other healthcare providers as well as the trading partners. In this type of system, the healthcare provider may request medical data records of a patient in order to properly diagnose or prescribe a treatment for a patient""s condition. The transaction request for medical data records is routed through the medical transaction system to the appropriate medical data record source, such as another healthcare provider. The medical data record source, in response, provides medical data records to the requesting healthcare provider station through the medical transaction system. This embodiment of the medical transaction system handles this type of medical data record transactions along with the medical claim transactions previously discussed. Thus, this embodiment of the invention provides a medical transaction system that integrates the function of providing medical data records with the function of processing medical healthcare claims.
Other advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon reading and understanding the following detailed description.